The present invention relates to a foodstuff. More particularly, this invention concerns a process cheese and a method of making same.
It is known to mix various additives with process cheese, by which is meant a normally spreadable or soft cheese made by blending several different types of cheese. For instance, ham, crabmeat or mushrooms are occasionally added to increase the taste. In addition various spices such as pepper, caraway, paprika, most vegetables, chives and the like are frequently mixed with process cheese. Such mixtures are usually intended to enhance the normally bland taste of process cheese.
Another well-known foodstuff often used as a sandwich filling or spread is liverwurst. The consumption of this product is far greater than the consumption of any similar product, and a person fond of liverwurst often will eat many pounds of it in the course of a single year. The principal disadvantage of liverwurst is that it has a fat content between 40% and 60% by weight. This means that a person who consumes a considerable amount of liverwurst is consuming approximately half its weight in fat. The obvious disadvantage of this is that the high caloric intake can make the consumer also fat, with all of the concomitant health problems.
It has been suggested to reduce the high fat percentage in liverwurst. This has been done by the reduction of the fat content to as low as 23% to 24% by volume. Such reduction has, however, the enormous disadvantage that the taste of the liverwurst also decreases considerably. Thus such low-fat liverwurst has an insignificant part of the market as those persons who favor liverwurst would often rather do without than eat the almost tasteless low-fat variety. What is more in this low-fat product the animal fat is replaced with albumin and carbohydrates. Thus, although low in fat, the liverwurst is nonetheless not a highly healthy or desirable foodstuff.
Another suggestion has been to obtain the desirably taste of liver in a food product which is as inexpensive and calory-low as processed cheese. All such attempts have required the use of considerable quantities of relatively expensive liver, so that the finished product is usually almost as expensive as standard liverwurst. Any attempt to reduce the liver content by weight to below approximately 30% has yielded a product of relative unpalateability, so that such attempts have typically been given up as hopeless.